Living Alone (1919) by Stella Benson

Book review by Sophie H: Stella Benson’s 1919 novel Living Alone opens with an eccentric young woman (who is later revealed to have magical powers) bursting into a meeting of the ‘Committee for War Savings’, after being chased for stealing a bun. The witch, who through a misunderstanding eventually becomes known as Angela although she … Continue reading →

Still She Wished for Company (1924), by Margaret Irwin

Still She Wished for Company is a timeslip story – a true one, the author suggests – about a psychic connection between two women living a hundred years apart.  There is independent Jan, perhaps in her mid-20s and living in 1920s London; and innocent Juliana, in her late teens and living with her family in … Continue reading →

Tory Heaven or Thunder on the Right by Marghanita Laski (1948)

We had a very good reading group on Marghanita Laski. She began her novel-writing career with comic political satires, first Love on the Supertax, and then this novel, Tory Heaven. Copies of this novel may be harder to come by than Love on the Supertax, as I haven’t seen it reviewed elsewhere. Review by Thecla … Continue reading →

The Killer and the Slain by Hugh Walpole (1942)

Review by Thecla: This is a dark, uncanny novel, one of Walpole’s macabre works. It is subtitled “A Strange Story” and the dedication to Henry James reads “This macabre is dedicated in loving memory and humble admiration to the great author of The Turn of the Screw.” This is Walpole’s version of the doppelgänger story. … Continue reading →